A few random links of the sort that's been crowded out by Obamania.

* Kevin Kelly is looking for evidence of a global superorganism.

* Fire > language: Humans built fires 500 thousand years before they could speak.

* Haruki Murakami: "We are living in the future now, in a kind of science fiction - 9/11 itself was kind of unreal to me, those images of planes diving into the buildings. I felt like I stepped into the wrong world." I've felt that way about nearly everything since the 2000 election, to be honest.

* The Apocalypse according to Dan Clowes.

* Cosmic apocalypses at Discover.